


let the river in

by eastern_wind



Series: of gold and rust, of diamonds and dust [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Adopted Children, Angst, Gen, Non-Canonical Character Death, Platonic Life Partners, Second Shinobi War, Short Chapters, htgr prequel, orochimaru's side of events, with a happy (?) ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2020-12-24 20:08:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21105287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eastern_wind/pseuds/eastern_wind
Summary: the roads that lead us home not always are the shortest or the kindest





	1. nature plays

**Author's Note:**

> a bit of backstory to what happens in the Sound

Orochimaru is three when his parents are taken hostage by Iwa, four when the First Shinobi War ends and his mother's sword is returned to the village. Their remains never are.

Aunt Hinomi - his father's sister - takes him in. She sings him to sleep and teaches him kenjutsu even though she is a genjutsu master and her stance is nowhere close to perfect. She tells him stories about old gods and cooks his favorite meals. She is awful with anything that requires more than boiling water and on most of the days he goes to sleep with a taste of soggy rice and burnt eggs on his tongue, but it doesn't matter. Orochimaru grows up loved, even if not by his parents.

She is enough.

He misses his mother and father still, yet their faces slowly fade from his memory, taken over by techniques and fighting styles. Their photo is hanging near a small tokonoma of Hinomi's cramped apartment, but the sun burns the colors out. By the time he graduates from the Academy he hardly remembers their faces anymore, only his mother's yellow eyes haunt his dreams sometimes. 

His team is… bright. 

Tsunade is loud, brash and  _ caring _ and wears her heart on her sleeve. She loses all her money from D-ranks on bets, constantly talks about her little brother and her eyes are the color of tansy. Tansy means 'immortality', his aunt explains. It also means 'war'. Somehow it suits Tsunade just fine. 

Jiraiya, by some twisted joke of gods, manages to be even louder. He is unpredictable, brilliant in his stupidity and thrives on his awful sense of humor. He turns every spar into a soap opera, drives Hiruzen-sensei mad with his antics and there are ugly scars on his back.  _ Got in a fight with a rabid porcupine, _ he jokes when Tsunade asks him and Orochimaru knows it's a lie, but-

Aunt Hinomi is falling apart. For as long as he remembers she lives by him, for him - the photo has faded into an orange blur on a paper, but she says he is more and more resembling his dad. Orochimaru is a genin and he doesn't need a guardian anymore so the loss of her brother finally catches up, slowly crippling her, clawing at her insides when nobody sees. 

Hinomi starts looking through him more than at him, calls out the name that is not his and talks to the dead as if they are living. It is all too soon when the yari of Kusa nin takes her away from Orochimaru too. He is ten by then, already a shinobi but still a child. 

Suddenly, he is completely alone in this world. There's nothing more he can want than to bring her back. He can’t go home.

Weeks pass by before he opens the door of their - no, his now - apartment for the first time. His hands are shaking but he doesn't cry. He cried all his tears out during those nights at the Memorial Stone and now he is  _ empty _ . In a cluttered twenty three square meters he owns now the smell of dust reigns unconquered. Orochimaru would give anything for fire alarm to go off and his aunt come running out of the kitchen laughing because she has managed to burn water again. 

Silence lingers.

His team sees him struggling to hold it together, but he pushes them away. Anger is easy. 

Then comes fear.

He dreams of yellow eyes of his mother. They stare at him from every mirror, two glowing holes on a pale face that must look like his father’s. He carries them with him even though they are nothing but a glimpse of warmth in his memory. He has nothing of aunt Hinomi and it  _ hurts _ . She disappeared without a trace, a name on the black polished stone and a shed skin of a white snake in an old leather pouch she kept under her pillow are the only proof of her past existence. 

No friends come to visit. No family still alive to grieve. Orochimaru is the last to remember.

When he asks Hiruzen-sensei about the snake skin - his first words after almost a month of silence - the man tells him the legend. Something stirs in his mind: a small speck of hope among all the yearning, an idea that pushes him forward. He knows now, she did not pass away. She is still here - his guardian, his guide, his Benzaiten - reborn as she shed her old humane skin. He just needs to find a way to know her again, recognize a familiar face in the crowd of millions. He knows he will, even if it takes an eternity. 

The fear is still here, but with it comes obsession.


	2. a limit where we break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this story is inspired by [let the river in](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvzYOZDAJHw) by dotan

"Genius, absolutely genius approach!" Councilman Nukagari praises him. In his hands lies a burnt square of thin paper - Orochimaru's thirtieth attempt at chakra transformation seal. 

This time his mistake is hardly destructive (a broken ulna and clavicle don’t count because Tsunade found and healed him before his own weary attempts could do any nerve damage). This seal is nothing but a byproduct, yet R&D jōnin are watching Nukagari-sama greedily, waiting to get their hungry eyes onto Orochimaru's new creation. They offer to buy the rights to his invention and he is in no financial condition to deny some money, so 'chakra paper' comes into existence.

He uses most of the money they give him to buy more ink and paper.

“Idiot!” Tsunade barks at him. “What were you thinking?” She rages at his apparent stupidity and lack of self-control, yet her jade chakra sinks into his third-degree burns, soothing the pain into numbness. Jiraiya is lurking in the background; he keeps throwing curious looks at the writings on the walls, but prefers to stay quiet so the Senju Menace wouldn’t turn her wrath on him. Orochimaru has no answer for her - again - and she seems more upset than angry with him. 

“Can you at least call us before you try anything stupid next time?” she pleads. 

He looks away, silent.

"Crazy," civilians whisper behind his back, "mental." 

The neighbors warn their children to stay away from him. People in the market stare like he’s a yūrei - a ghost haunting the streets, not a living person. 

So what if he's paler than most of Konoha? So what if his eyes begin to glow in the dark? Who cares? 

No one does, but the landlord gives him the third warning for the 'creepy' sounds that come from his apartment at night and eventually Orochimaru is evicted from the building for good. He is thirteen, nowhere to go and ready to give his monthly pay to see a photo of his parents once again, just to see if there's anything of them left in him. 

He has nothing of Aunt Hinomi - his experiments are all in vain and all that’s left of the shed skin of the white snake is a pile of dull disconnected scales.

Orochimaru wanders Konoha like a ghost the villagers believe him to be. He is silent and meticulous in his search for a place to continue the sealwork that will bring him closer to the revelation - the key to Hinomi’s rebirth.

He tries to set a camp in the abandoned mine leading below the village but Jiraiya - the nosy moron - finds him and drags them both into his microscopic apartment in the bowels of Flower district. It is filled to the brim with scrolls and parchments: spilling onto a crummy futon, sticking out of the empty fridge, dangling from the ceiling like spider nests… Orochimaru recognizes seals on some of them and looks at his teammate with wide eyes as he tries to back away and disappear into the summer rain, but Jiraiya - unpredictable, idiotic,  _ brilliant _ \- stops him.

"Bad dreams," he confides even though Orochimaru never asked. It is nowhere close to an excuse or an explanation but a delirious mind slips him a memory: long dreadful marks on smooth bronze skin and a crooked smile,  _ got in a fight with a rabid porcupine. _ This time the smile is grim but the words ring true. 

Orochimaru tries to tell himself he doesn't care, let Tsunade deal with it, she has a heart bigger than the village and a protective streak a mile long... 

They end up sharing the futon and fall asleep to the cacophony of moans and cries that hung heavily in the air so thick Orocchimaru could probably cut it with his mother’s sword. He dreams of yellow eyes, long shadows, scales rustling, but every now and then something sharp digs into his side and shadows part. He wakes up shy of midday - feeling light and rested for the first time in years - and dusty air smells like burnt omelette and overcooked rice. 

Once let past Orochimaru's walls Jiraiya sinks his teeth in him and doesn't let go. He can't stay put for the love of the gods, drags him and Tsunade into his thoughtless misadventures and he  _ talks. _ Of theories and legends and seals and expectations and goals - he talks and Orochimaru can't stop but argue with him. Sometimes because the dumbass willingly digs his own grave, sometimes just because… just because it changes something in him - wild and vicious gives way to hesitant feeling of endearment - and Orochimaru slowly lets it win him over.

To Hiruzen-sensei's surprise he starts joining Tsunade in her hospital hours, at first to watch, but the scientist in him is just too strong, so he offers his insight once, twice…

Jiraiya is always close too, quiet and curious as they work and obnoxiously loud as soon as hanging on one hinge door to _their_ crappy apartment is shut - bursting with new ideas and concepts of his own. He's nowhere as good with anatomy and chakra control to be a healer, but the tools and seals they create together save just as many lives as Tsunade and Orochimaru's operations.

The year since he's been evicted from his apartment passes in a blink, then another and all of a sudden the three of them aren't just Third's prized pupils. There are rumors around the village and for the first time in Orochimaru's life it's not about his ghostly appearance and behavior. People are… hopeful.

The three of them have a glen in the Nara forest that somehow becomes theirs. On the starry summer nights Orochimaru lies on the dewy grass with Tsunade's feet on his lap and Jiraiya's hair constantly getting in his mouth and smiles.

He does not return to his experiments until he’s almost nineteen and the world is falling apart at the seams.


	3. burst the dams and start again

Senju Nawaki dies in an explosion of Iwa mine the next day after his twelfth birthday. His death sends Tsunade spiraling down into alcoholic haze, Jiraiya is ordered out of the village to collect intel and Orochimaru is the only one left to pick up the pieces. 

He notices the first traces of a future catastrophe when he visits Takara Estate to return the necklace of her fallen brother to Tsunade. It is the day of the Bon and there are shadows crawling up the walls - not the Nara kind, not sentient tendrils of the watchful, but ghostly shapes of the ones who will never walk the streets of Fire District again - and the air is heavy with the smell of incense. The festivities are muted and he hardly meets more than two thirds of the usual folk.

Tsunade is too drunk to even go to the Senju Shrine for the okuribi and as her tears stain Orochimaru's uniform he swears to find a way. Six years worth of knowledge must be enough to create a seal that will lead him to Hinomi's soul and Tsunade to Nawaki's. 

Obsession returns full force but when he tells her of his plan, Tsunade finally let's go of the bottle and takes the pen. The fire in her eyes rivals his, immortality and war hidden in the tansy depth. They have never understood each other so well before, now - there's nothing that can stop them.

Jiraiya returns a month later with a burn half his face, a scroll with toad contract behind his back and the news that shake the village to the core: Iwa plans an alliance with Kiri. Konoha begins to turn like an old mechanism - the grinding of the rusty from years of peacetime cogs is torturously slow. But neither Orochimaru and Tsunade nor Jiraiya listen to the distant oppressive beat of war drums, they have more important quest on their hands now.

Tsunade is wary at first, but together they make breakthrough after breakthrough and the basic concept of DNA comes from under her brush like a revelation. They study each other, study patients that flood the hospital and the autopsy table is never empty these days too. It takes them almost a year to understand that Orochimaru, in fact, isn't exactly the model specimen of Konoha or even Fire. 

They search for clues, but all he knows about his parents fits on a square of the chakra paper. His father and aunt were Morino - too many of them in the village to count and none of his blood. His mother… he doesn't even remember her name anymore, much less her maiden surname. All she had left to him is Kusanagi and her yellow, ghostly eyes. 

There's something primal that twists in him at the thought of Kusa, it is in the name of his mother's faithful sword, it is the place where his aunt was killed. It is too far away though and hardly a place to start his search. They turn to the archives then. The books are no help, Jiraiya's toads croak in disgust at his questions and in a last desperate attempt to understand Tsunade agrees they need to test their theories. 

Hiruzen-sensei slowly drowns in the piles of paperwork and his crumbling marriage so it's much easier to evade his suspicion now.

Seals stretch out on the thin cheap paper that burns well, the symbols are drawn, crossed out and witten over until they are ready to sink into Orochimaru's skin. Tsunade secretly sneaks the designs to her grandmother, once to consult on the ink types, once to beg her for a summon scroll she knows Mito has but cannot use because she already has a contract with the Fox. Mito is old and hardly easy to be persuaded even by her favorite (and one of not many still alive) family member, but she sees the shadows lurking in Tsunade's eyes and gives in.

When Tsunade returns from already mostly empty Takara Estate to Jiraiya's place the three of them somehow ended up sharing, her lips are a picture of self-healing mess. They dare not ask, more than aware of her temper, and wait. She rolls out tall but surprisingly thin scroll on the cluttered by kunai and scalpels floor, clears a bit of space for herself on a pile of yukata, haori and her mesh shirts and grits through her teeth, "When shit hits the fan, we go East. Uzu will take us. They have eyes everywhere."

Slugs know nothing about Orochimaru's line but they tell Tsunade she is even less of Fire than he is. Katsuyu is as wistful as a little ball of slime can be while reminiscing of the old days of Senju when they still inhabited the Land of Sound. The ancient paths leading to Shikkotsurin are closed though and there's no way Tsunade can just defect Konoha and run across half the continent chasing the legend. She still has plenty of people to ask, Clan Elders and such, only...

Nawaki's death has started an unsettling trend that not just Konoha, but the three of them also notice way too late. 

Senju are dying out.

"Can't you ask Mito at least? She must know something," Jiraiya offers in a rare display of an unburdened by too many plans and escape plans logic and Orochimaru nods from the bed where he recuperates from the seal application gone wrong. It is a sound idea

It never comes to be because as they speak Mito dies, giving the Fox over to another Uzumaki, a relative so distant, Tsunade doesn't even know of her existence. Yet.

The greatest weapon turns into a promise of one. Konoha is at its weakest despite the grown during fat peaceful years numbers of shinobi and the spies from other villages are more than aware of it.

Second Shinobi War begins on the 3rd of December, 1992.


	4. the current finds the quickest way

It's been seven years since Nawaki's death, two since Mito's sacrifice. Orochimaru is still ghostly, but he grows leaner, his moves almost serpentine as he stalks wounded shinobi and drags them to the Konoha Medical or his team's tent if they're out in the field. Tsunade is constantly by his side and while her face is no longer gentle, time doesn’t have a hold on her features anymore. Jiraiya is a watchful satellite to their dual genius and his eyes are no longer naive but always searching for the signs of a threat. 

They taste war.

Tsunade is the last Senju to own Takara - the diamond of the Strength of a Hundred now marks her face, the same shade of ominous indigo that Mito had - and with this bitter legacy comes the wisdom of generations. The seals are part of her body now, hers and her boys'. The symbols are twisting and turning into tight spirals and jagged lines, but it's on a pale skin, violet on porcelain where they bloom and uncoil into something entirely new. 

The knowledge hidden away in Senju archives finds home in Orochimaru, seeps into him like water into dry soil. He still doesn't know who he is, where he comes from and where to seek the answers - Uzu, their last hope - has fallen in less than a night. Two more Ancient Clans turn into nothing but names in history books.

Orochimaru's team is among the ones sent into the battle after the call for help reaches Konoha. They arrive to the sight of a ruined, scorched by flames Uzu and ANBU sweeping the island, fighting off the last invaders. There's nothing left intact and the lone survivor of the massacre - a little girl no older than two - is given to Orochimaru for a check up by a nobody in Tapir mask. As soon as he declares her fit for transportation, the ANBU disappears without a word.

People are dead and that's a loss, of course, but Orochimaru lets the collective mourning slide past him. So much death in the air wakes something in him and he is walking southeast before he knows it.

It is an unholy site he finds, where blood is still curdling but no bodies in sight. Jiraiya catches up to him with Tsunade in tow - they didn't find anyone still breathing - but Orochimaru doesn't look at them. There, in a pool of blood, something moves and -

The eyes of his mother, yellow, unblinking, stare at him, daring him to come closer. 

One step is all it takes.

Darkness is absolute in wherever the last breath of Uzu has taken him. The air is damp yet not stale, not bloody. Orochimaru tries a small katon only to freeze at the sound… He must be dreaming because his mother's eyes, the whispers, this sound- 

The rustling of scales triggers his fight or flight response and he runs, his teammates still close behind. He can feel their heartbeat, hear it, taste it. The sensation stops him in his tracks just in time to hear her call. 

Orochimaru exits Ryūchi Cave a month later and steps on a fresh grass at the outskirts of Kusa as a new man. There is something in his blood, in the tight spiral that makes his being, that doesn't even feel human. 

It only makes sense, because, in the end, he hardly is. Snakes has told him the truth, showed him a glimpse of the past where the Hakuja of Ryūchi Cave shed her skin and gave up her eternity for a mortal man. 

Jiraiya and Tsunade wait for him at the border of Land of Grass, tired of hiding from the patrols, but ecstatic to see him. Their legend of an unknown Uzu weapon gone wrong is already fed to the closest outpost along with fake news of Orochimaru's trauma they have to account for in their movements. His teammates are smart, he knows, but they are also worried sick, so he ruffles Jiraiya's ugly mane and kisses Tsunade's forehead, the only display of affection he has ever allowed between them.

"We will find him," are the first words Orochimaru says to them, the words of the first and only child of the Snake Sage. It comes out in a hiss, but they smile because they know. They will.

Their return to Konoha is a quiet affair - after a rendezvous with a squad of a plain-masked ANBU in Tanzaku-gai the three of them are brought into the village unseen. It is evident Hiruzen-sensei has nothing to do with it, the old man hardly has time to see his own children since the war began and his students are pretty independent at their twenty six. The face that greets them on the empty training ground is still unexpected - Councilman Shimura is a vocal opponent of training iryō-nin at the expense of brute force. He never liked Team Seven much.

Danzō is an unlikely company and his offer has a bloody tinge to it but he his deal is just too good to pass up. Tsunade gets her grandfather's scrolls that had mysteriously disappeared decades ago and all the Councilman wants in return is their help in healing children. It's not until they see these kids they really know the depth of their misstep.

Orochimaru - once Hiruzen-sensei's favorite - tries to talk to the old man. He knows how close sensei has become to the Councilman so he is ready to be called a liar, to the disappointment in Hokage's eyes - the harder reality hits him when Hiruzen only nods at the mention of Councilman's Root and tells him to continue with Danzō's guidance.

Maybe Jiraiya and Tsunade really rubbed off him. Maybe the time he spent in Ryūchi Cave gave him perspective. Maybe he is alright with DNA experimentation only as long it's his life is on the line.

He walks to their crammy apartment and doesn't recognize the village he used to know.

War changes people. Yesterday's sweethearts become lovers if they survive the battles their Kage wishes won. Tsunade loses herself in healing and fighting at day and in Katō Dan at night. Jiraiya's everlasting devotion to her never fades but he seeks comfort in the hands of many women, any that are willing to share. Orochimaru steps aside and watches them surrender their bodies to something he cannot, doesn't know how to and doesn't want to feel. Desire makes people lose their heads.

Tsunade wants to marry Dan.

Jiraiya wants her to be happy.

Hokage wants to win the war his Council has instigated.

“I want to become a hero,” Dan keeps saying during those months where the war is high on the rise and Konoha is losing more and more, “I have a dream.”

Orochimaru wants to-

-stop.

There's blood and slime everywhere. It is glowing eerily under the last rays of the setting sun, seeping from the wounds of Gamabunta, Katsuyu and Manda into the scorched by salamander's fire ground. The stalemate is the best they could get.

Whole armies lie slain.

"So," Hanzō croaks, "Konoha only has you three now. You fought well, for iryō, no less. Go home, Sannin, you will not have this Land, not while I'm still breathing."

Jiraiya is one whole third-degree burn, Orochimaru can feel how Sage mode sucks life energy out of him and Tsunade…

Katsuyu is the first to disappear, leaving only a small hunched figure in its wake. Tsunade's hands are covered in blood way past the elbows, the blood of Katō Dan that chose to die so he could have his dream. She believed him even though that dream had nothing to do with her and now when it came true it came with a dead body at her feet and an unborn child in her womb.


	5. we stole the colour from the sun

It’s 1997 and the war has ended.

The Sannin - and doesn’t the name have a sting - follow rivers slowly, cautiously as they crawl away from Ame. Three days after the final battle, after Hanzō has _let_ them go, they meet three battered war orphans, just kids really. They have no care for Konoha hitaiate because they have nothing to lose. Something snaps in Jiraiya at the sight of them and he gives his last ration bar for them to share. They travel further south, together.

Tsunade is on the verge of a miscarriage from the loss, stress, and exhaustion so they have to stop as soon as they enter the Land of That. Konan copies Jiraiya’s seals with shaky hands and Yahiko holds Tsunade still as Orochimaru draws his own on her. There’s just enough chakra to keep both Tsunade and her unborn alive between the two men and they still need food so Nagato volunteers to hunt some. 

He is killed by a vagabond shinobi of no longer existing Land of This as soon as he steps out of the protective genjutsu-seal sequence. 

The war has ended, but only on paper. In human minds, it will go on as long as they remember the sacrifices it required of them.

“Child of the Prophecy,” Jiraiya caws, torn, when he leans in to close lifeless eyes and sees the strange pattern. Orochimaru knows the legend, recognizes the chance they’ve just lost and his control over seals weakens for a _single _heartbeat. Tsunade goes comatose and whatever he wants to say is forgotten.

They don’t have time or chakra for a ritual pyre. Jiraiya buries the body in a shallow, hardly an elbow-deep grave, and they’re off again. Yahiko and Konan are a broken mess, alone in this world, unneeded. Only two -thirds instead of the whole, they latch onto the adults. Jiraiya can't just shoo them away and Orochimaru is simply glad to have more helping hands so the children walk with the Sannin down to the border of the Land of Rivers. Only there, on the bank of Oonumagawa that isn't hidden behind the wall of rain, they ask where the men are headed.

They cannot take Tsunade to Konoha, not in her current state, Orochimaru understands with sudden clarity. “Sound,” he rasps. “Shikkotsurin if we can find it.”

Sannin disappear from the face of the Elemental Countries, swallowed by the postwar chaos. Nobody pays attention to another five refugees fleeing south, the ships roaming the Sea of Thieves take them from the mouth of Oonumagawa to the Trepang Isle in record time because pirate captains don’t discriminate as long as money flows. Jiraiya makes sure it does.

Forests of the Sound are unwelcoming, jungle heat only worsening Tsunade’s condition. She is thinning by the hour - already nothing but skin and bones - and a small bump in the swell of her belly is only alive because of Jiraiya’s blood and Orochimaru’s chakra. They cannot wait much longer. 

With shaking hands and dying hope they draw the most complicated seal - the pinnacle of their talent - around her body, knowing they don’t have enough chakra to feed it but ready to die trying. 

They don’t.

Konan and Yahiko join them at the edge of the outline, unasked and willing. Their blood seeps into the red soil and their chakra - untrained and wild - makes the seal explode with light. Reverse summoning breaks the laws of nature and what the Sannin could not finish, slugs can. Tsunade’s face contorts in a grimace of unbearable pain as she screams herself awake and goes into labor.

Ichiru is born prematurely on December 29th, 1997.

The three months after birth are a constant battle. There’s no enemy though, no one to fight except the _death_ circling a tiny child with pale, translucent skin. She is unbelievably fragile, cradled in Orochimaru’s palm with her toes barely reaching past his wrist. He can see every vein, every artery as he holds her, cocooned in healing chakra that twists and turns, forming tenketsu and connective paths. 

She is a miracle. 

Jiraiya takes Konan and Yahiko away to scout the Sound for the ruins of Senju settlements. He can take care of the child and Tsunade alright, but she can’t even look at him without bursting into tears. His unbound affection has always been a trigger for her. Now the gentleness in his eyes, the way he mourns with her even though it is her lover she has lost, is a torture and Jiraiya would never want to cause her pain. So he leaves.

Orochimaru stays. He takes care of Ichiru, giving as much space for Tsunade’s grief as he can. He takes care of her too. He has never wanted it, never dreamed about parenthood but there are times when he cannot look away from a screaming toddler in his lap without a small barely-there smile. She is growing fast, not an ounce of her parents in the wrinkled features - yet. One day she grabs his finger with the littlest arms he has ever seen and Orochimaru suddenly feels _lost_. 

The knowledge that he’d die for her is no revelation. The warmth that spreads in his chest - is.

The fear: of more loss, of death - not his, he’s never been afraid of it - but his _family_ follows him days and nights since then. At least he still can feel, he tries reassuring himself to no avail, while Ichiru is sleeping in his arms. He is unsure Tsunade can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i got a little bit sidetracked here so


	6. the blood beneath my skin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> because yes

Jiraiya returns in early June with no good news. He drops off Yahiko and Konan, spends two days trying to get Tsunade to talk to him, and heads straight to Konoha via her punch-express on the third morning. 

He still has a chūnin team to look after, spy network to keep up and Hokage to appease. Of the three of them, he has always been the worst liar but Hiruzen is too distracted and happy to have at least one of his prized pupils back. He, unlike Danzo, believes all the nonsense Jiraiya spews in heaps. Danzo, Jiraiya decides, is Orochimaru’s headache from now on.

Truth be told, he’s only back in Konoha because _ money_. Getting a young Yamanaka to play his eyes is just the cherry on top.

The forest of bones is no place to raise a child. Jiraiya knows it, so he snoops around until there’s no scroll in Konoha Library left untouched. Finally, _ finally_, Yamanaka heir gets him to meet Oya’s old seamstress’ granddaughter. She is his last chance so he goes out on a limb and tells her the truth, ready to kill her right in the alley if she tries to snitch. 

“You’ll have it,” she promises heatedly and Jiraiya gets another pair of eyes for himself. Or rather Tsunade, should she ever need this young but already greying girl's loyalty. She sneaks him into the restricted section of Konoha Archive. 

The map is ancient and withered but it _ exists. _

They get out alive and unseen. Jiraiya reconsiders his opinions about children of nukenin. About time, since one of his teammates apparently has one now.

He sends the map over with a toad.

Orochimaru grabs the teens, a bundle with constantly wailing Ichiru and herds barely responsive Tsunade towards the home of her ancestors - Akagorin Forest. He pillages a couple of trade outposts for goods, builds the first treehouse, teaches Yahiko and Konan some basic healing and sealing. By the time he is done, fall came and gone unnoticed in the rust-soiled jungle, winter is in full swing, and Tsunade is slowly emerging from her shell.

She isn’t a bright presence he has used to know before but she gets better. Orochimaru doesn’t cling to naive hope that she will miraculously heal the moment she agrees to take Ichiru in her arms, he’s seen much in Konoha Medical. It doesn’t always work like this. Tsunade doesn’t smile, doesn’t try to pull him in a pointless wager but she settles back into her skin while showing Yahiko a correct way to close a gash on his knee and watching Konan feed Ichiru.

One day he wakes up to the sound of her laughter. It’s raspy and has an edge of hysteria to it.

“What-” he rushes over, his palms already shining with chakra.

“She… Oh gods,” Tsunade babbles, thrusting a giggling child into his arms, “-runs in family… Almost gave me a heart attack, I swear!”

Orochimaru lifts one-year-old to his eye level and can’t hold back a snort, “Hime, really?”

She’s still laughing but it’s a more contained sound once the shock begins to ebb away. She beckons panicked Konan and Yahiko closer and points at the kid, “It’s alright. She’s just decided to follow her great-grandma’s steps. Or he now, really...”

Ichiru chooses this moment to grab a fistful of Orochimaru’s hair and tug at it. Thin emerald vines sprout from her fingers, coiling around the long silky strand like an exotic decoration and at this moment she is clearly happy and undeniably _ he _. 

It takes the four of them another three days to run all the tests they can on self-built and stolen from merchants and Land of Bones equipment, but the results stay the same. Ichiru (who shifts back and forth like a clock, sometimes getting stuck with both sets of goods or none and scaring Yahiko shitless) undoubtedly is a bearer of the previously thought extinct kekkei genkai of her great-grandmother’s Clan. She cannot even talk yet and still, the manipulation of life energy comes easy as breathing to her and so does mokuton.

This dive in the research turns out to be exactly what Tsunade needs though. Maybe she can relate to her kid more now - not just Dan’s but hers and her Clan’s too. Maybe she just can’t mourn the loss of him anymore. She starts venturing outside their slowly growing Den, begins caring for Ichiru and one day Orochimaru catches her _ singing_.

Then and only then - with a heavy heart and mind full of doubt - he heads for Konoha.

He still dreams of his mother’s eyes and the promise he made to Tsunade all those years ago. He also can’t, in full conscience, let Danzo ruin his home. It takes him about two years of constant running between Fire and Sound to notice that he is already too late.


	7. the will of men can't hold it in

It’s the spring of 1999 and the Third Shinobi War begins when a man follows his heart and abandons the mission. Orochimaru is a day away from Akagorin Forest and a tiny imp that calls him papa despite his best efforts to explain that he is not, when the news reaches him. He curses the bird that waits for him to take the scroll with the orders and sends a snake to find Jiraiya. 

They meet in a crappy inn at the foot of Kairosan’i eleven hours later and as the blonde idiot shrugs toad slime off his haori, he grunts, “Someone has to watch Konoha.”

“Someone has to stay in the Den, dobe,” Orochimaru argues. He’s past worry already. His skin is crawling with barely contained fear as they flip the coin.

“Heads.”

“Tails.”

He loses, of course. Well, they both do in a way.

“Fuck, Oro, I’m shit with kids!”

“You’ll manage," Orochimaru all but threatens. "Take care of them.”

Jiraiya manages. Barely.

It’s 2001 and Orochimaru is in the Den for the first time in four months. He’s been dealing with too much of Danzo’s bullshit lately and he is a good medic but not on Tsunade's level, not even close, so he fights a losing battle. It grates and the anger boils in him, ready to spill out in a violent outburst. He never knew how grounding his teammates were for him until the separation.

His patience is worn thin and he's ready to lash out at any hint of provocation.

The Den meets him with a rebuilt treehouse, a new well, a restored shrine and... Ichiru. Three-and-a-change-years-old little one with Tsunade’s face runs into him with a toothy smile and still calls him _ papa_. Jiraiya is honored with _ daddy _ by this point and he hardly denies the title anymore. Tiny hands mess Orochimaru’s hair in a blink of an eye and he winces at the surprisingly strong tug that almost leaves him partly bald, yet all of a sudden he feels _ at peace_. 

He wears vine crowns Ichiru makes for him with dignity even the snottiest members of the Daimyō Court don't possess.

He only has a week before he's due to leave again and even this week is someone’s stolen time but Orochimaru needs it. He needs Tsunade’s still shaky hands to hold him close as he tells her of his failures. He needs Jiraiya’s stupid grin when he gives the idiot a freshly printed copy of his latest book. He needs Konan’s origami cranes fluttering across the Den, dancing in the rare rays of light breaking through the canopy of the jungle. He needs Yahiko’s badgering to train together and distant look in his eyes that appears only when the boy is sure Konan can't see him.

But most of all he needs to feel Ichiru’s chakra thrum in tune with the forest. It reminds Orochimaru why he is still trying.

He returns to Konoha nine days later, just in time to give the last child Danzo has thrown at him a blood transfusion. The shinigami circles around the boy for almost a month but the boy is strong, just like his donor. He survives and Orochimaru never sees him again.

It’s 2002 and Jiraiya’s ex-student Minato approaches Orochimaru with an unusual request. He visits the future Hokage, with no small amount of surprise meeting an _ Uzumaki _ woman whose chakra sings with light and _ Kanasabi _ girl that studies the seals on his arms and, as recognition flashes in her dark eyes, bows to him. She never says a word, but for a while becomes his shadow during his Konoha-time. They work in tandem and when he visits Den, Tsunade and Jiraiya studiously try to take apart the seal that slowly forms with their shared effort. Sannin never quite grasp it.

It's 2003 when Hiruzen-sensei summons him to the Hokage Tower and all but orders a genin team on him. The old man - how come his face is so wrinkled and exhausted now? - looks ready for a fight and is quite lost when there’s none. Orochimaru is proficient with toddlers and adolescents by that time, just enough for the adjustment period to be much shorter than the Council expects.

Kazuo and Itō are fine kids, but it’s Anko that catches his eye. She - brash and stubborn - reminds him of both Tsunade and Jiraiya at once. It is no surprise she quickly becomes his favorite.

It’s an unusually cold winter of 2004, especially for the Den, and Jiraiya is laughing at Orochimaru’s bewildered expression until he almost hiccups himself to death. Tsunade has to tear her eyes from the finished One Step Through Time seal he brought from Konoha and fix the suffocating idiot. She isn’t very happy for it.

“What were you expecting though, huh?” she barks at frozen in place Orochimaru. “He’s at the age when he emulates his parents.”

"_He_ now?" the man wheezes curiously. 

Tsunade snorts.

Ichiru is fast asleep on the couch by her side, one of Orochimaru’s yukatas pooled around his small frame. It’s sleeves are stained with purple kohl, the same color as smudges around the kid’s eyes. 

"A teenage rebellion come early, I reckon. Been like this for a couple of weeks without a change now."

“He clearly needs more practice,” Orochimaru finally announces his verdict. “And violet isn’t his color.”

Tsunade fixes him with an amused glare and mutters, “I’m sure you’re better suited to inform him of that.” It sounds like a challenge. Jiraiya is panting, unable to laugh anymore, and he is sure he can hear Yahiko and Konan giggle in the next room.

When Orochimaru leaves for Konoha, he is the one laughing because Ichiru - seemingly firmly stuck to his male bits for now - proudly marches to give him a farewell smooch sporting a wide grin, a fitting charcoal yukata, and bronze streaks under his eyes. If anything, he is Tsunade, Jiraiya and Orochimaru’s best.

It’s January 19th, 2005 and Orochimaru has never done anything this cruel. Anko is looking at him with wide, pained eyes but she lets him write the symbols on her skin and this faith she puts in him is turning him inside out. She was - still is - not just his student, she is an _ attachment _ he foolishly let form and it can kill her. He has to do it for her own _ good_.

Kazuo and Itō will walk away almost unscathed, he never taught them half of what Anko knows. Orochimaru shared his contract with her. What was he thinking?

She has no one to protect her. Her mother is long dead by now and the Elders of Masayume Clan are prideful, they will cast her - the student of a nukenin - out. Her father - a shade of a man he's once been - is hardly in any shape to shield Anko from the wrath of the village.

She will become an easy target for Danzō.

No, he bites his lip until sharp teeth draw blood,_ she won't._

The last line settles on Anko's clavicle and just before Orochimaru's chakra sinks in to claw at her and break her mind, rearranging it into something T&I won’t be able to use against her when Danzo sics them on her, he whispers, “I’m so sorry, Anko-chan.”

Chakra sizzles and the girl falls onto the wooden floor of Jiraiya’s old apartment. Her screams echo in the empty room.

Orochimaru is already halfway across the village. He takes Dan’s little sister Shizune - the only lever Konoha has on Sannin now - from the Genin Corps Dormitory and flees for the Den, hoping Masayume Hiko's student, the girl that once helped Jiraiya break into the Archives, will stay true to her promise and make sure Anko gets out of the mess he's made alive. It's a lot to ask of a desk shinobi but something tells him Nanagusa can be trusted.

He takes the risk.

With Shizune safe in his arms he leaps over the village Wall and, as soon as his feet touch the ground, Code Red twists the midnight air of Konoha. There's no need to hide their chakra signatures now. 

The world around them blurs - shunshin takes the Snake Sage and his carry away from the impending sounds of pursuit and first explosions. It is incredibly fast, yet even the swiftest speed cannot dry the wet streaks on his face.

He will mourn this loss for years to come.


	8. nature wins

Time flies by like a flock of birds spooked into flight. 

Orochimaru returns to Akagorin Den as a shadow of himself. Danzō has declared him a traitor, the Hokage just went with it despite the years of faithful service, and still he cannot abandon Konoha to Uzushio's fate. He rushes to the battlefields and fights along with his yesterday comrades, safely hidden under the plethora of disguises.

The war comes to a standstill shortly after the Bon.

Orochimaru takes the last glance at the older, no longer vivid in his brightness after so many losses Fourth, and leaves the Fire. He travels, collects intel where Jiraiya's methods fall through, steals and copies new techniques, heals the sick and the wounded, and yet… The weight of his misdeeds, shortcomings, and constant nagging of _ could've done more, could've stopped him _ lies heavy on his heart.

It is only so easy, against his better judgement, to dive into what he has always done best - research. 

Konan and Yahiko leave the nest when they turn seventeen. Sannin have taught them everything they could and the lust for adventure - or vengeance, though nobody say it out loud - pushes them out into a bigger world. They write from time to time, less and less as months pass, too busy trying to take back what was once theirs. Last time Jiraiya hears from them, they've just joined a pacifist group named Akatsuki somewhere in the Land of Echo.

Jiraiya takes their leave hard. For him they are still Ame kids left to fend for themselves in the war _ his _ village waged. He still remembers the dead eyes of the Child of the Prophecy. Like Orochimaru, he is often out and about, snooping around under the ruse of writing his beloved novels and it's not long before he drags the first kid away from the frontlines and into the Den. When one kid happens to be two, affected by a haywire kekkei genkai, he just shrugs in his _ whaddya say _ manner and sets out to find Ichiru to build a bunk bed instead of single one. _ Dad has a tendency to pick up strays, _ she jokes, but then she kind of drags Kin home and, _ whoops, that's contagious, whaddya say. _

Tsunade still mourns Konoha. When the news of the Kyūbi rampage reaches the Land of Sound with Haruno trade caravan, she remembers the girl that once stood by her grandmother and Orochimaru's stories of the Fourth's wife, and puts two and two together. She squares her shoulders and reaches out to the ones who owe her, the ones who are still loyal and the ones who still care. The pendulum counting the years, months, and days until rebellion begins to swing, slowly at first, but gaining the pace. The woman that had to go through the worst to come out the winner becomes a matriarch to the Den's already not that tiny community of war orphans, victims of blood purges and just lost children. 

Shizune, a small girl with wide hopeful eyes, grows up with the biggest heart Orochimaru has ever met. She follows him like a lost puppy even when she's twenty seven and a medic with a name of her own across the Musei Peninsula. She loves the world itself and the world returns the affection tenfold with Ichiru leading the parade of her admirers.

Ichiru.

She grows, fast and steady and entirely comfortable with her kekkei genkai. She builds the Den together with Jiraiya while Orochimaru and Tsunade plan the small settlement, but by eleven she is getting restless. 

She's been to trade outposts and neighboring countries with the Sannin and Shizune countless times - healing doesn't come naturally to her but she tries hard and there's always an abundance of people in need as the Mist gets bloodier by the hour - and, just as it lured Konan and Yahiko away, the vast expanse of unexplored lands and the life of shinobi beckon her. Konoha is a no go zone, of course, so she ponders Tani, Kusa or even Taki. She even tries running away there but returns three weeks later, stone-faced and keeping to her male body. Ichiru keeps his silence about what exactly transpired on the road for years. 

How he ends up in Kiri is a dangerous topic nobody dares to bring up even a decade later. Still, even Suigetsu - the latest addition to the Den - somehow knows that it was after Ichiru's second solo venture into the big world and subsequent acquisition of Kiri hitaiate that Tsunade almost had a heart attack and the blonde man began referring to Orochimaru respectfully as Father instead of a playful _ papa. _

Orochimaru begins to dye his hair to cover up the grey.

Ichiru races through the ranks quickly, careful to hide his Senju ancestry but still strong enough to earn himself a name. He has friends in three hidden villages, contacts in six, however Konoha is never one of them. He knows the history and the _ story _ of his family.

Tsunade offers him a contract with the slugs - the ancestral scroll that Mito gave her decades ago - but Shikkotsurin has no allure for Ichiru. Neither do frogs or snakes. 

"I'll find my own way," he promises. It takes him years of travel, of fruitless search for something to connect to until he finally reaches the outskirts of Taki. It has always called for him in a way he couldn't explain until... he can. Ichiru returns to the Den with a monarch butterfly kaleidoscope of his own, a contract with the Elders of Ōkabamadara Nettairin, and a foul-mouthed girl with magenta hair standing proudly by his side.

He grows and the Den grows with him.

Rowdy Tayuya, anxious Sakon, reliable Ukon, Kimimaro with his unwavering friendship with Jūgo, bubbly in all the ways Suigetsu… Somehow they all find a place to stay in Akagorin Den, the heart of what once used to be Senju lands and is now a home for Konoha Sannin. How much has changed in past decades...

It feels like just a moment ago Orochimaru was cradling a bloody screaming newborn with Tsunade’s amber eyes and a tuft of bluish-blonde hair to his chest and had absolutely no idea what to do with her and his mother.

Ichiru. The child that isn't his by any means. 

A man with Hinomi's gentle smile. A woman with Nawaki's contagious cheer (rarely now but only more cherished for that). 

After all these years of searching-

Will you spend a life looking for home?

Orochimaru turns to look at Tsunade that hasn't changed a iota since she was nineteen. She is still strikingly beautiful, even nodding off on their old couch in his too big for her yukata. She's stolen it quite some time ago and still wears it despite his multiple attempts to take it back because, while beauty has never drawn Orochimaru, Tsunade's brash confidence always had him wrapped around her pinkie. She smiles in her sleep, easy and carefree.

Jiraiya's head lulls to the side on her lap as he snores loud enough to wake up half the forest. His face is a map of wrinkles, scars, and badly healed burn marks and he has never been even marginally pretty, but his mind is still brilliantly sharp. He can't hide it even as acts like an idiot on a daily basis, irks Orochimaru with his frivolous manner of speaking, and gets his ass handed to him at least twice a week by any member of the Den available at the moment.

His bony feet are slung over Orochimaru's and it takes him a lot of self-restraint not to tickle the soles and enjoy the ruckus that ought to happen when the dobe wakes and plants his face into Tsunade's cleavage. She's never quite accepted Jiraiya's feelings and, by this point, Orochimaru isn't really sure the blonde idiot doesn't just rile her up for the fun of it and his badly hidden masochistic tendencies. 

He also can't tell if she still gets mad just because that's how the two of them work.

Jiraiya shivers in his sleep, so Orochimaru grabs a formless yellow-and-magenta quilt that Sakon and Ukon knitted for his birthday last year from the floor and tries to spread it without jostling others too much.

"You're so loud when you're thinking," Tsunade scolds him softly as her slender hand catches one of the five mangled corners. Together they manage to get Jiraiya more or less wrapped up and she orders, "Sleep, dumbass."

He falls into the nothingness of the dream with their fingers intertwined on top of Jiraiya's mess of a hair.

Orochimaru is finally home.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the LLF Comment Project, which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:  
Short comments  
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Questions  
“<3” as extra kudos
> 
> This author replies to comments. If you don’t want a reply, feel free to sign your comment with “whisper”, I sure will be happy to receive it, but won't respond.


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